ClaimsRay Kurzweil

“With the revolutions in genomics, proteomics, rational drug design, therapeutic cloning of our own organs and tissues, and related developments in bio-information sciences, we will be adding more than a year every year within ten years.”

Ray Kurzweil, essay author 2001 The Law of Accelerating Returns (Kurzweil Library) archived copy

Prediction Science and research methods

Within ten years of 2001, biotechnology advances will add more than a year of life expectancy every year.

Resolved false The record shows it did not happen or was not so.

Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2011. True: by 2011, life expectancy (at birth or remaining life expectancy, in the US or developed countries) was rising by more than one year per calendar year, with the rise attributable to biotechnology advances. Mostly false: biotech-driven gains occurred but annual increases stayed well below one year, or the rate was reached only after 2011. False: annual life-expectancy gains around 2011 were a small fraction of a year (for example 0.1–0.3 years), shown by official mortality data.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 QuickStats: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Sex and Black or White Race — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2000–2011 CDC MMWR · 8 November 2013

    “In 2011, life expectancy at birth for the overall U.S. population was 78.7 years. From 2000 to 2011, gains in life expectancy varied by race and sex, with the largest increase (5.7%) among black males, to 72.1 years.”

  2. E2 National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 61, Number 6, 10/10/2012 National Center for Health Statistics (CDC) · 10 October 2012

    “Life expectancy remained the same in 2011 as it had been in 2010 at 78.7 years.”

  3. E3 National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 61, Number 6, 10/10/2012 National Center for Health Statistics (CDC) · 10 October 2012

    “Life expectancy for males increased 0.1 year, from 76.2 in 2010 to 76.3 in 2011. Female life expectancy also increased 0.1 year, from 81.0 years to 81.1 years.”

  4. E4 [PDF] Changing trends in mortality: an international comparison Office for National Statistics (UK) · 7 August 2018

    “Throughout the period 2000 to 2011, the average improvement in life expectancy at birth for the countries shown was 13.1 weeks per year for males and 9.4 weeks per year for females.”

Reasoning

Official NCHS data show US life expectancy at birth was unchanged at 78.7 years from 2010 to 2011, with male and female life expectancy each rising only 0.1 year (E2, E3). The UK ONS international comparison reports average improvements of 13.1 weeks per year for males and 9.4 weeks per year for females across 2000–2011, roughly 0.18–0.25 years annually (E4). These annual gains are a small fraction of a year, far below the predicted rate of more than one year per year, which matches the criteria's definition of false.

Cite this claim

Ray Kurzweil, “Within ten years of 2001, biotechnology advances will add more than a year of life expectancy every year.” (said 2001). Verdict: resolved false. Reliability API, claim c_52818a6dd45b, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_52818a6dd45b

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Ray Kurzweil, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More prediction claims by Ray Kurzweil

  1. Mostly false Prediction May 2020
    “This is where combining AI with biotechnology is headed, and within several years all vaccine and medication development could be done this way.”

    Within several years all vaccine and medication development could be done by combining AI with biotechnology.

  2. Mostly false Prediction 3 June 2015
    “We're going to gradually merge and enhance ourselves.”

    Kurzweil predicted that humans will gradually merge with technology and enhance themselves.

  3. Resolved true Prediction 12 December 2002
    “Ten or 15 years from now we’ll go to the third dimension.”

    Ten or 15 years after 2002, computing will move to three-dimensional circuits as integrated circuits run out of steam.

  4. Mostly false Prediction January 2001
    “Computers will be able to read on their own, understanding and modeling what they have read, by the second decade of the twenty-first century.”

    Computers will be able to read on their own, understanding and modeling what they read, by the second decade of the 21st century.

  5. Mostly false Prediction January 2001
    “In line with my earlier predictions, supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by around 2020.”

    Supercomputers will achieve one human brain's capacity by 2010, and personal computers by around 2020.

All of them

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